> Just an obvious example — there are of course no engineers in the decision to make a "Snow Leopard" release or not. That is a "marketing" decision. I think i

> Just an obvious example — there are of course no engineers in the decision to make a "Snow Leopard" release or not. That is a "marketing" decision. I think it is more that the decision to SAY Snow Leopard was a bug fix-only release was a marketing one. The reality is that release also sported things like 64-bit Intel ports of all apps, added Grand Central Dispatch (e.g. an entirely new code concurrency system) and included a from-scratch Finder rewrite. I always saw these releases (I bundle Mountain Lion in) were all about trying to rein in excessively long release cycles. Short release cycles tend to not have enough time to introduce new bugs, while extended release cycles create a sense of urgency to get code in under the wire. Now, release cycles have moved to be staged across a fairly predictable annual calendar. If there's an issue where features are getting pushed out 6 months or a year earlier than they should, that is a management and incentives problem.